# Problem on finite state machines in the feynman textbook

I'm currently reading Feynman Lectures on Computation and got stuck in problem 3.1 which says

Suppose we feed a sequence of 1's and 0's - a binary number - into a machine. Design a machine which performs a pairwise sum of the digits, that is, one which takes the incoming digits two at a time and adds them, spitting the result out in two steps. So, if two digits come in as 00, it spits out 00; a 10 or 01 results in a 01 (1+0 = 10+11!); but a 11 results in binary 10: 1+1 = 2, in decimal, 10 in binary. I will give you a hint: the machine will require four states.

I don't ask you the answer. Just I don't understand what this is asking. For example, when the input sequences are (00)(01)(10)(11)(10)(00), output sequences should be what?

The numbers are encoded LSB first. In your example, $(00)(01)(10)(11)(10)(00)$ corresponds to the addition $011100 + 001010$, and the answer should be $011001(0)$, corresponding to the binary answer $(0)100110$. The bit in parentheses is the carry bit, which I don't think Feynman intended you to output.
More generally, Feynman wasn't very accurate, so you should think of a reasonable concrete interpretation of the problem which will result in an automaton which has a small number of states; I can think of several, some of which requiring less than four states. (It depends whether $(00)$ is a single digit or a pair of consecutive digits.) I don't think it's very important to guess what Feynman intended exactly.